Danielle: I was beaten up too

In the wake of assaulted Rihanna’s bruised face appearing in photographs around the internet, model Danielle Lloyd has claimed she was assaulted by her boyfriend when she was a teenage model.

The 25 year old beauty felt she was “compelled to speak out” after she saw images of a battered and bruised Rihanna - allegedly assaulted by her boyfriend Chris Brown - appeared on the net.

Danielle spent a week in the hospital during that two-year relationship after he got particularly violent one day. The model has released a Rihanna-like picture of her bruised face with a swollen lip and black eye, taken after one of the assault sprees.

She said she felt saddened to see Rihanna’s picture and advised all women to not return to their abusive partners. She was speaking at a BBC documentary Dangerous Love that will coincide with the launch of Refuge’s new stand against domestic abuse. She revealed that her ex was actually a lovely person but changed dramatically when he got to a controlling mindset. She kept forgiving him after the attacks because “every time, he’d cry and say it wouldn’t happen again,” and added “towards the end he was hitting me near enough every day.” On the day of the final attack Danielle found herself getting back consciousness in a pool of blood.

The model hoped her story would warn other women of a potentially abusive partner saying, “I was given help when I most needed it and I want to be able to help others now.” Danielle continued her modeling career after she broke up with the abused ex whom she refuses to name and subsequently won the Miss England title in 2004 before winning the Miss Great Britain pageant in 2006. She lost the Miss Great Britain title when she posed for Playboy.